Renaming the Margaret Sanger Residence Hall

In July 2020, Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis called for the creation of a committee to help guide the university in establishing a process for renaming buildings, spaces, or structures on campus.

In the fall of that year, the Renaming Buildings, Spaces, and Structures Committee was created. The committee established processes and principles for reviewing future renaming requests. The committee was made up of faculty, staff, and students.

The committee discussed and reviewed historical materials, SUNY policies, and university practices, as well as any precedent efforts at other institutions and principles of historical inquiry for this renaming review process. The committee then developed a process and principles for reviewing any future renaming requests and made a recommendation to President McInnis, who approved it as the official university’s renaming policy.

This year, in keeping with the new process, a committee was convened to review a formal request by the Undergraduate Student Government to rename the Margaret Sanger residence hall.

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How the committee made its decision on the Margaret Sanger residence hall
Members of the committee took a purposeful and introspective look at Margaret Sanger’s core values, character, and structure using the following factors:
1. The centrality of the person’s offensive behavior to his or her life as a whole
2. Connection to the university
3. Any harmful impact of the person’s behavior
4. Community identification with the feature
5. Strength and clarity of the historical evidence
6. The university’s prior consideration of the issues
7. Possibilities for mitigation
What the committee learned about Margaret Sanger and her legacy
Margaret Sanger’s mission was to empower women to make their own reproductive choices, which led to the legalization and widespread use of contraceptives in the United States. Additionally, she brought about the reversal of federal and state “Comstock laws” that prohibited publication and distribution of information about sex, sexuality, contraception, and human reproduction.

In 1921, she funded the American Birth Control League, the precursor to Planned Parenthood. In 1929, she formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control to lobby Congress for legislation that would permit doctors to prescribe birth control. In 1936, the courts made it legal for doctors to prescribe birth control.

While Sanger’s concerns and advocacy for reproductive health have been documented, so has her approach on eugenics – the theory that society can be improved through planned breeding for desirable traits like intelligence and industriousness. It is a legacy rooted in racism. For example, in her 1921 article, The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda, Sanger wrote “the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” She was so intent on her mission to advocate for birth control that she chose to align herself with ideologies and organizations that were explicitly ableist and white supremacist.

Sanger’s actions undermined reproductive freedom and caused irreparable damage to Black people, Latino people, Indigenous people, immigrants, people with disabilities, people with low incomes, and many others.

After a robust and thoughtful deliberation, the committee voted unanimously in favor of recommending that the Sanger building be renamed.
Next Steps
President McInnis agreed with the committee’s recommendation and is moving forward with the renaming process.

The next step involves the Stony Brook community in helping to select a new name that inspires current and future students, faculty, and staff to be innovative, forward-thinking, and inclusive. Any submissions considered must be consistent with the university’s goals and mission.

First, the university will collect potential names for the building through August 31, 2022. To submit a name for consideration, use this survey form. Participants must be current faculty members, staff, or students. They can submit a suggestion, along with a 150-word description of how the name fits in with the Stony Brook University mission.

President McInnis will select a name from the list submitted by the campus community and will bring it to a fall meeting of the Stony Brook Council for consideration. If approved, that name will be forwarded to the SUNY Board of Trustees for consideration at one of its 2022-23 regularly scheduled meetings. The building name will change if approved by the SUNY Board.

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The Committee on Margaret Sanger
Kelly Dowling, Assistant Dean for Advancement for the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Karian Wright, Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusion in the Graduate School; Director, Center for Inclusive Education
Lynda Perdomo-Ayala, Department Administrative Head for Pharmacological Sciences
Margaret Sheryll, Southampton Operations Coordinator for the School of Health Professions
Marrisa Trachtenberg, Director of Risk Management and Policy Compliance, Enterprise Risk Management
Nkeiru Ubadike, Undergraduate Student, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Class of 2022
Richard Laskowski, Professor, College of Business